2017 marks the centenary of the greatest event in world history: the Russian Revolution. The names Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky will forever be connected to that momentous social, political, and economic upheaval, which forever changed the course of humanity. Many people familiar with 20th Century history know that when the Russian working class overthrew the tsar in February 1917, Lenin was in exile in Switzerland, soon to return to Petrograd in the famous sealed train. But where was Trotsky before returning to the maelstrom?

The year 2016 ended with two more dramatic and bloody occurrences: the assassination of the Russian ambassador in Istanbul and the brutal murder of people in Berlin who were peacefully enjoying preparations for Christmas. These events were linked to the bloody morass in the Middle East and more specifically to Syria.

We publish here the third of a five-part series of articles on the 1837-1838 Rebellions of Upper and Lower Canada. It is important that Marxists understand the place of these important events in the history of the class struggle in Canada and Quebec.

On the windswept plains of south-central North Dakota, hundreds of miles from any major city, a slowly simmering drama has exploded suddenly into public consciousness. The Standing Rock Sioux's battle to defend their water and lands while facing down vicious repression by private security forces and the state is the largest mobilization of Native unity and resistance in the US in decades. It also represents an important opportunity to unite the labor and environmentalist movements.

Two parallel movements arose in the early 1800s - the Reform Movement in Upper Canada, and movement around the Parti canadien in Lower Canada, which would later be called the Parti patriote. These movements were first and foremost movements to reform the government of the provinces in favour of a real democracy.

Thousands of students have been demonstrating against tuition fees across Canada. They are being mobilized by the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) under the banner of the “Fight the Fees” campaign. For many students, this could not have come at a better time.

Canada has always been portrayed as a country in which the class struggle has been exempt; that the history of the country is that of a people who prefer evolution to revolution, in which law and order has flourished and persevered. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The history of Canada is a history rich in class struggle: rich in struggles for the overthrow of the established order and the establishment of a new one.

The conditions of young people are getting worse and worse. In the post-war period, the youth could expect to be better off than their parents. Unions, especially in the automobile and manufacturing sector, were at the forefront of winning improvements that were eventually generalized to the majority of workers. Parental leave, reliable hours, holidays, and pensions, were won and served to raise the bar generally. But since generation X, and now the millennial generation, conditions stagnated and then went into reverse. The recent signing of a contract with two-tier pensions at General Motors by the Unifor leadership represents a new sell-out of the youth and merely serves to solidify this generational double standard.

For decades, the residents of Grassy Narrows First Nation, a small community near the Manitoba border, have suffered from the effects of mercury in local lakes and rivers, eating poisoned fish and falling prey to illness from unsafe drinking water. The Ontario government’s shameful inaction to the ongoing crisis in Grassy Narrows is a testament to the low priority of human needs such as the health of Indigenous people in a state run on behalf of the capitalist class.

In this continuation of our two-part analysis of the repercussions of the Port of Churchill closure, we detail the economic depression facing the North, the impact of the world capitalist crisis on the resource extraction sector, the social crisis facing nothern communities and the struggle against anti-aboriginal racism.